


Comforting Discomfort

by SandrC



Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Autistic Ron, Character Study, Spoilers for Episode 42: Henry's Father and the Chamber of Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26492350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: Ron has always been outside looking in. Now is no different.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Comforting Discomfort

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you have a sad shower thought and it crystallizes in a metaphor about depression and Otherness. Oops?
> 
> 42 fucked me up, y'all, but I won't lie and say I don't love it or that I haven't listened to it three times now. Coz I do and I did and I'm not gonna stop. It had everything I love: lore, angst, Will Campos proving he was a liar when he said he wasn't a good actor, me getting so hype the first time I listened my pizza got cold coz I was stimming too hard to eat
> 
> The good shit, yanno?
> 
> Anyway, autistic Ron rights. Also Henry is 1/4 elf by blood but them recessive elf genes hit him hard, huh?
> 
> Barry Oak can meet me in the Neverwinter Murder Pit, btw. I don't care that it's currently under a Fry's. Fight me, old man.

Ron F Stampler is no stranger to this hollow Otherness that fills his chest as he watches Henry break down. In fact, as sick as this may seem, he feels _comfortable_ here, looking in on someone having a personal moment from the outside.

He has never felt like he was a part of anyone's lives until recently and, if he's being honest, as awful as returning to being Voyeuristic Other is, it is _safe_. He knows _how_ to feel Other. He knows the shame of looking in on someone else's deeply personal pain. It's like a sweater he put away for the summertime, only now its winter and, even though it has holes in it and it barely keeps him warm, the texture is his favorite and he loves the woodsmoke smell, even if the memory of the fire isn't the best.

Before all this—before Faerûn and the portal and the kidnappings and their own fathers being weird extradimensional wizard things?—he wore this feeling like a blanket. He was an Other simply watching the tragedy that was his own life, from the death of his father to his own bumbling attempt to make something of himself. He was a Voyeuristic Consumer of Samantha's dead husband and the space he left in her and Terry Jr's lives. But now, after everything, he was a person. A father. A friend. It's _hard_ to be those things. It takes _effort_.

It's _so easy_ to slip back into Observer and it scares him how hard it is to resist the urge, even if he knows it's wrong.

So Henry discovers a _terrifying_ truth about himself and, while Ron himself can't understand what is being shown, he understands that it is hurting Henry, _his friend_. It is oddly painful to watch him break down and cry—holding a dragon, Ron's doggy body, _his own sons_. It feels awful because he doesn't understand _what_ about it is so personal, just that it _is_. It _is_ and, _as usual_ , Ron is looking in on it.

Observer. Other. Consumer of this tragedy.

Worse still—more than the crying and the dry frustration—is Henry's mother.

If watching a silent Henry stalk forward with determination, fire in his eyes reddened with tears, his sons on his shoulders is _terrifying_ , watching Henry shakily greet a mother he hasn't seen in about twenty years and be rebuffed is _abhorrent_. Abhorrent but as easy to disconnect from as taking off a pair of pants.

And _again_ , Ron is outside looking in. And _again_ , Ron is unsure of his part in all of this.

And _again_ , it feels like oil on his skin as he thinks about how intimate and personal this conversation is.

And _again_ , he thinks about how that oily residue and inherent shame feels like _home_.


End file.
